In August of this year, Microsoft Japan implemented a "Working Time Reform" - for a whole month, the company implemented a 4-day working week, giving its employees Friday as a day off.
And the results were impressive.
First, workers took 25.4% fewer days off during work hours, printed 58.7% fewer pages, and used 23.1% less electricity in the office (because the office was closed an extra day). All this saved the company a lot of money.
Second, productivity increased by an impressive 39.9%. This means that although workers were at work for less time, they actually did even more.
A significant part of the increase in productivity is associated with changing the schedule of planning sessions. Since there were only four days left in the work week to get everything done, many planning meetings were cut, canceled, or used online chats.
While this experience of shortening the work week may not work with other types of work, one thing is certain: people can only get a certain amount of work done in a week. After a certain threshold, work duties will no longer be fulfilled, turning into a simple filling of working hours.
Andrey Kholomin